Evaluation of activation in medical products from electron beam processing at energies slightly above 10 MeV

Standards for radiation sterilization of health care products require evaluation of the potential for induced radioactivity for electron beam energies greater than 10 MeV. Measured energy for a 10 MeV accelerator may be slightly higher, which could fall under the requirement. The evaluation method in this paper uses a pathways analysis method to estimate individual dose, which is compared against the estimate of induced activity. Based on this comparison, the amount of induced activity at 10.4 MeV beam energy does not present a significant individual risk from exposure to the irradiated device.